Last week I was in Redmond for the 2018 MVP Summit. The MVP summit is a yearly gathering of individuals Microsoft has recognized for their community contributions. Attendees cover the cost of flights and Microsoft covers meals, entertainments and accommodations (100% of the room if 2 MVPs share, 50% if you want your own room).

A Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) is an award for individuals who have exhibited exceptional technical expertise and a talent for sharing knowledge within their technical community.

The summit itself is a series of sessions that are mostly organized by Award Category (for example, Windows Development) that encompass technical deep-dives into upcoming products and technologies, feedback sessions on the current generation of product and planning sessions – all under NDA, of course. These sessions are hugely valuable in understanding what is coming and how to best spend my time in preparing to share details as they become publicly available.

Of course, it’s not all just the technical sessions - we also get to socialize with fellow MVPs and members of the Microsoft Product Groups with organized social events every night and many side meetings. And I would be remiss if I didn’t point out some of the fine giveaways:

Although I cannot talk about what was covered during the Summit, I can say that this was one of the best Summits I recall in terms of content (and food!) and I am very enthusiastic about what is to come.